


worse sights than this

by rhllors



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhllors/pseuds/rhllors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanessa, however, rises from her own ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	worse sights than this

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quietcuriosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietcuriosity/gifts).



> happy yuletide! i hope you enjoy this one, it lead to me thinking a lot about dionysus, of all things (it will become apparent), but i really loved writing it. 
> 
> content warning: nothing explicit, but discussion of dionysus leads to mentions of blood, cannibalism and murder.

 ALL THOSE THAT GO BENEATH, DO SO AT THEIR PERIL

                    **oscar wilde** , the picture of dorian gray

 

 

When Vanessa Ives is a girl, before-- _before_ , she comes across a book from Sir Malcolm’s collection on Dionysus. Her pale fingers have slid through most of the volumes that cover the carnivorous walls of his library but this book she picks up again, again, again. The Greeks are something that she enjoys tales of, capricious and violent, jealous and vengeful, they light her imagination to flame. From Artemis and her hunting dogs to the burning walls of fallen Troy, they capture her mind in a way that little else has yet been able to

She tells Mina these stories, too, under the bed clothes, hidden from sight. Their breath mingles under the sheets; their small, sweaty bodies sharing stories from time immemorial about all manner of depravity. These Gods desire blood, and the blood, new to both of them, runs hot at the thought of it.

‘Hera tells Semele to ask Zeus to reveal his Godhood to her,’ Vanessa whispers, eyes wide, their fingers intertwined, ‘And he does, because she so desperately wants to know if it is truly Zeus, King of the Gods himself.’

Mina has heard this story a thousand times before by now, but still her breath hitches. Vanessa always had a gift for stories, whisking the words straight from her soul.

‘When he did, he came in his truest form, as a rain of lightning bolts, setting Semele on fire. Zeus ate the husk of her heart.’ Vanessa’s voice is low, but full of awe, she can see the woman on fire, bright in her mind, overcome by the power of Zeus’s awesome godhood. These pagans, Vanessa knows, have a knack for the dramatic. ‘His name reflects that.  _Dimētōr_. Of two mothers.’ They talk of blood ritual, maenads dancing naked in the fields, ripping apart all that they come across.

(Vanessa’s mother disapproves of her interest in all things pagan, but is largely too distracted to ever fully commit to commenting on it. There are greater things to think of.)

Later, after, Vanessa will realise that Dionysus taught her much about real Gods as well as her old friend, the Devil. To be embraced is to be devoured, and spat out, reborn.

Semele burns.

Vanessa, however, rises from her own ashes.

Now, these she tells these tales to someone different. Mina is ash in the wind, gone but never forgotten--Vanessa still prays for her soul, when the mood takes her--but Ethan, Ethan is here. He is her present (and her future, hopefully, her traitorous mind offers, a glimmering possibility of hope which she will not let herself feed, for it is just that, a possibility), an unmoveable object in a world made of witches and demons, all manner of things which thump in the night.

Ethan had little time for myth when he grew up, under the weight of the frontier, and she’s never completely sure how interested in her little tales he is, but he smiles when topic of conversation wonders to Semele, Zeus, Hera. This cabin, she thinks, if only we could stay here forever. No Gods but the ones she invites in.

(The wolves are circling.

Thump, thump.)

‘So,’ he says, warm and open and there, there for her, ‘These followers, these…’ Ethan searches for the word, the correct word, he is considerate but still enthusiastic for more knowledge.

‘Maenads.’ she says, with a smile.

‘Maenads, right,’ he repeats, matching her smile, ‘These maenads, what happened afterwards? You know. Once Dionysus has had his vengeance, his revels moved on to another land...those women, what happened to them?’

Vanessa pauses. She never much considered this, when she was young, under those bedclothes, but then she had been a girl dreaming of a driving scream, rather than a woman thinking of the blood on their hands, around their mouths, a stomach full of raw flash.

‘Euripides banishes them. Agave has murdered her own son, the ultimate transgression,’ Vanessa says, seeing the mother holding her son’s head, burned black by blood in the light of the moon, ‘But most, most don’t care enough to tell us.’

The silence sits in the air, pregnant with possibility.

The moon is hanging low, this night, it’s glow casting shadows across the moor. It is an omnipresent reminder to them (as if they could ever forget?) that there is so much out of their control. Maenads gave themselves to the scream. Ethan understands, better than most, the pull of the familiar loss of control.

‘Do you think they went back to their families, bellies full of human flesh?’ his hand drifts towards hers, his rough finger tracing the skin of the back of her hand, not as soft as might be expected. He forgets, sometimes, when his eyes rest on her face, memorising her high, aristocratic features so they will be forever tattooed in his memory, that these hands have seen atrocity. Ethan knows it was no resting cure they tried on her, that first time. The Devil does not rest easy in his mortal flesh.

‘I think they danced in the moonlight,’ Vanessa says suddenly, her pensive look vanishing, replaced by a smile, her hand reaching out and clasping his. ‘Because the bacchanal was more than the violence, it was beauty too. They transcended their mortal forms, as wives, mothers, sisters, and gave themselves to something far more powerful than anything they could imagine. The maenads became women again, but they never forgot the beat of the drum.’

Ethan’s hand is cool and strong around Vanessa’s. It feels like hope, it feels like home, even in the vast wilderness, even whilst the predators prowl. The moonlight feels almost warm on her face when she pulls him up, now with a laugh licking around her teeth, a hint of wildness behind her eyes, dragging him into the middle of their ramshackle hideaway. She pushes and pulls his arms before he realises that they are dancing, dancing in the moonlight. He watches as she closes her eyes, smiling wide, and guides him into a frankly incomprehensible glide across the dirt floor. It does not matter that he can not make sense of it, because Ethan can feel it within her; the blazing fire, the scream of the maenad, the beat of some far off drums surge through them both.

Vanessa Ives knows the Gods better than most, and there may always be a drumming insider her head--but she knows that she will always be able to dance in the moonlight.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the title comes from donna tartt's paraphrase of the iliad in the secret history: 'Be strong saith my heart I am a soldier, I have seen worse sights than this'. it occurred to me when writing this that there was something of vanessa in that. there's another oblique reference to tsh with the mention of gods devouring and spitting out--apologies, i just love that phrase. it's hard to write about dionysus without thinking about donna tartt.
> 
> every dionysus myth is a little different. apologies to any classicists for the bastardisation of a few different ones.


End file.
